Alternative Medicine Provider Is Sentenced

Golden, Colo. (AP) — An alternative medicine practitioner was sentenced Monday to 13 years in prison in the death of a 19-year-old cancer victim who underwent a procedure in which his blood was exposed to ultraviolet light.

Brian O’Connell pleaded guilty last month to criminally negligent homicide in the death of Sean Flanagan. He also pleaded guilty to illegally practicing medicine and other charges.

O’Connell practiced naturopathy, which relies on natural remedies. He treated Flanagan and others by removing blood, exposing it to light and returning it to the body with hydrogen peroxide.

Prosecutors said he lied about his education and credentials.

He had asked for leniency, saying he didn’t know it was illegal to call himself a doctor or to use some the invasive treatments he performed.

“I never did any of this out of malice,” he said. “I did not intend to steal money, hope, time or anything from any of the people I worked with.”

Judge Margie Enquist was unsympathetic. “People came to you in the most desperate of situations and you took advantage of them,” she said.

Flanagan’s father told the judge there was never any doubt his son would die of Ewing’s sarcoma, a bone cancer. But he said the family thought alternative treatment could prolong his life.

David Flanagan and his wife said after the hearing that they believed the sentence was fair.

O’Connell was also sentenced to a concurrent three-year jail term on two misdemeanor charges.

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